Apple case reveals depths of Apple psychosis

The court case against Samsung is forcing Apple to air publically some fairly embarrassing facts about Steve Jobs' paranoia.

It would seem that Jobs was so completely paranoid and terrified that other people would steal the genius ideas that he stole from elsewhere that he made some bizarre security rules that nearly hobbled his projects. When he started the iPhone project, Jobs refused to allow its creators to know what they were building. Scott Forstall, the head designer of Apple's iOS said that he was forbidden to hire anyone outside the company to work on the iPhone. He was told to find "superstars" within Apple, and they were not allowed to be told what the project was before they signed on. Instead they were told that they had to give up their weekends and nights for two years to work on this “secret project.”

Forstall took over an entire building and locked it down with badge readers and security cameras. Workers on the team would have to show their badges five or six times" to get into work. Forstall hung a sign outside the main entrance that read "Fight Club” as a fairly obvious film reference.

Apple's early designs had "bulbous backsides and angled edges." However suddenly they hit on one which they thought was “more beautiful.” Apparently Samsung will say that was because they happened to see one of its phones. Forstall insists that he never told anyone to go and copy anything from Samsung.

Jobs always denied to the press that Apple used focus groups. He wanted to create the impression that iPhones and iPads were designed in a kind of aesthetic vacuum. In fact Jobs' Mob did what every other company did and sat around and asked different groups what they thought. The problem with this level of secrecy operating at Apple, it becomes incredibly unlikely that Samsung might have found out what Apple was doing and copy it. Particularly as it had its similar designs around at the same time.